Infinite Way Tape Transcript Excerpts

Excerpt from 1956 Portland Closed Class - The Garden of Eden -- Neither Good Nor Evil - 1
Master #170 - Tape 1 - Side 2

You for a brief moment in meditation, sit back close your eyes and begin to realize this -- that out there external to me there is nothing good and nothing evil. There is only the presence of God -- the universe of God's creating -- the Spirit of God indwelling. This is a spiritual universe peopled with children of God. Now out there we can see some people who we consider evil. Don't be afraid to look at them. Don't be afraid to see them right in front of you. Whoever it is, whereever it is or they might be that you consider evil. And stop to think if everybody on Earth thinks them so -- if there aren't just as many people or more who may consider them perfectly wonderful people. And then see whether or not they are evil or whether you have accepted an evil concept of them. Remember that if they were evil in and of themselves that is the way the world would see them.

Try to look at the roses of which this city has such an abundance and try to realize now that there are no good roses just as there are no evil roses. There are just roses. If you like them have them by the millions if you want. They have beauty. They have grace, perfume, form, and we like them. That doesn't say they're good, it just says that they're enjoyable. So let's have them. Ah, but here comes the next person who says, "No, no, no. Those flowers give me rose fever." How can that be? Now let us reverse this and see these roses as neither good nor evil but just roses. Just see them as partaking of the nature of God. Neither good nor evil but beautiful, colorful, harmonious, enjoyable.

Let's turn from roses or any other form of flowers and let's see our animals. Is there such a thing as a good dog or a good cat? No. There are dogs and there are cats. If they have any qualities of good we imbue them with those qualities. There are other people that cannot find that good in them. So let us now withdraw our concepts and agree there is neither good nor evil in dogs and cats, there are just dogs and cats. They may be beautiful and they may be friendly and they may be protective and they may be desireable, and we may love to have them around. But that's it. We are not going to call them good, we are not going to call them evil, we are going to call them only, creatures of God. You would be surprised when you begin to take this attitude for cats and dogs to find that every cat and dog in the world will be looking for you and wanting to be petted by you. Why? Because you are no longer expressing an opinion about dogs and cats, you are expressing the truth -- they are dogs and cats of God's creating. And that's what they are and that's what they want to be. And they want to be no more than that and no less than that, but they want to be understood for that. This is a dog and this is a cat and this is the creature that God has made. And the only qualities present are not good qualities or bad qualities -- God qualities.

And then let us turn to these humans. Those we like and those we dislike. Those we trust and those we distrust. And let us, you and I, withdraw from them all our previous concepts. And let us say, "You are neither good nor bad. You are the man of God's creating or the woman of God's creating. You are neither good nor bad. Whatever qualities you have are God's qualities. I will not vest you with any qualities. I will not pin my concepts on to you. I will see you as you are. Adam and Eve of God's creating. Pure undefiled in God's grace." Watch the miracle of human relationships when you begin to withdraw your concepts of the men and women in your life and begin to agree that they are not good and they are not bad, but that they are children of God, and that the qualities of God constitute their true being.


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